Job Ax To Hang Over Nasa 2 More Months

July 16, 1986|By James Fisher and Chris Reidy of The Sentinel Staff

NASA officials should know within two months whether the delay of shuttle flights until early 1988 will trigger more layoffs at Kennedy Space Center and elsewhere in the space agency, a budget analyst said Tuesday.

Shuttle chief Richard Truly said Monday he didn't expect more people to be furloughed even though NASA will miss by at least six months its July 1987 target date of resuming missions. The time-consuming redesign and testing of the shuttle's faulty booster rocket joints is causing the delay.

NASA headquarters has requested updated personnel and cost estimates from space centers based on the new schedule, said Gerald Smith, a space agency budget analyst in Washington.

A decision is expected by Sept. 15, when NASA turns over its proposed fiscal 1988 budget to the Office of Management and Budget.

The announcement that the shuttle will be grounded longer has raised fears that more layoffs are ahead at Kennedy, where about 1,000 people have lost jobs since the Jan. 28 Challenger accident.

''I think at this point really all we can say is that we're not really sure,'' said Kennedy spokesman Dick Young.

Spokesmen for major space center contractors Lockheed Space Operations, EG&G Florida and Boeing said their companies have not been contacted about any additional layoffs.

Truly said, ''Specifically at KSC . . . our approach has been to take the work force down to a core level of people and maintain them as we can until we fly again. And I hope that we will be able to do that.''

Responding to the recommendations of the Challenger commission will require a significant amount of time and employees, Truly said, and ''I am frankly not concerned about the lack of workload within the shuttle program.''

Thomas Lloyd-Butler, a San Francisco securities analyst who follows Lockheed and other aerospace companies, said he also does not expect significant, if any, layoffs as a result of the additional delay.

''Another six months, that may force some minimal cutbacks but I wouldn't look for anything serious,'' he said.

The federal government often allows high-technology companies to keep employees during periods of slow work because it is costly to retrain people who must be hired when the work picks up again, Lloyd-Butler said.

NASA Administrator James Fletcher privately assured some members of Congress on Tuesday that there will be no major job transfers between space centers until further study, said Rep. Bill Nelson, D-Melbourne, chairman of a space subcommittee.

In its efforts to reorganize the space station program, NASA was considering plans to transfer 1,900 jobs from Johnson Space Center in Houston to Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., according to a statement issued Monday by Rep. Mike Andrews, D-Texas.

Nelson and Rep. Robert Walker, R-Pa., wrote Fletcher a letter stating that such a move was premature and ill-advised.

''As we have not discussed these matters, we would not want you to assume that the proposed changes have our support,'' Nelson and Walker's letter stated. ''We might add that this lack of coordination with this committee extends a disturbing pattern which we would very much like to remedy.''

Fletcher announced June 30 that about a hundred jobs in the space station program would be shifted from Johnson to Marshall. The move to centralize and coordinate the program was in response to the Challenger commission's finding that NASA's management structure was flawed.

A major staff reduction at Johnson would hurt a local economy already suffering from the effects of falling oil prices.

Houston is especially angry that Johnson, exonerated by the commission, would be penalized at the expense of Marshall, whose poor management was partly blamed for the Challenger accident, a source said.